Official party, Mr Warlters, Mr Dempsey, parents, staff and students, we are gathered here today to celebrate your efforts with ‘the Aquinas Middle School Service Learning program.

Before we celebrate the student’s who have made significant efforts with their service-learning commitments. I would like to take some time to reflect upon how privileged we all are - and unfortunately how entitled some of you are.

Please focus your attention on the following video, called ‘The Race of Life’.

Every student in this room would have moved off that line! Private school, access to homework club for free tutoring to name two. Most of you would have been out the very front! Being privileged is not your choice and it is not your doing, it has been given to you. It does not mean you are better than anybody else. It is up to you to make the most of what you have been given. To be entitled - is to NOT appreciate the opportunities you have been given here on the amazing grounds of Aquinas College and to NOT give back to others who aren’t as privileged as you are.

The Service-Learning Program encourages you to give to others! To act in deed OR by doing! I know some of you out there have done no service hours. Be privileged and get involved and TRY everything you can at Aquinas! Don't be entitled!

The young gentleman I am about to present to you are anything but entitled. They have given, in some cases, hundreds of hours to others. I challenge you to ask any one of them who benefits most from service. I guarantee they will say the giver.

The Winter Sleep Out was a new initiative this year and proved to be very successful.

80 students braved a very cold winters night to sleep rough on the College grounds. The aim was to give students an appreciation of what it would be like to sleep on the streets, we had a talk from St Vincent De Paul volunteers and the students were fed the food offered to the homeless at night in the city. It was very cold and the students didn’t get very much sleep. They left in the morning without any food, so they would be tired and hungry when they got home.

We raised over $11,000 on the night. I would like to highlight James Bergin and Cooper Hopkins who combined raised $2,400. One of them even managed to stream videos of his experience to the residents of his street, who had donated much of the money. A big thank you must go out to the staff, mentors and students involved in the night and I am already looking forward to next years event.

I will now get Mr Dempsey to award the 2021 Service awards.

The first awards are for students who have completed 30 hours of service within the last 3 years and of those 30 hours 15 are CORE hours where they are directly helping someone in need.

This year’s recipients are:

• David Acaro
• Joshua Acaro
• Tremaine Baxter-Edwards
• Zachary Bower
• Declan Connell
• Dillon Harris
• Cooper Hopkins
• Orlando Iacano
• Lynkon Kenna
• Dominic Lomen
• Nishok Nimalan
• Luke Patak
  
• Harry West

The second group of award winners are receiving service colours. To receive service colour’s, you must have completed 60 hours of service with at least 30 of those hours being CORE hours.

This year’s recipient is:

• Perth Otero

Finally, we have 4 recipients of Service honours. To receive service honour’s, you must have completed over 100 hours of service throughout your time at Aquinas. 50 of those hours must have been CORE hours. We rarely give these awards out in middle school as it means that these students must have completed over 33 hours per year, for 3 consecutive years. This is a significant and very generous amount of time to have dedicated to serving others.

This year’s recipients are:

• Charlie Backhouse

Charlie has been involved in the bush care program, Clean up Australia, The Red shield appeal, beach clean-ups, Aquinas Bushcare, Blue Gum Lake tree plantings, Legacy Appeal, winter sleep out and purple bra day Appeals.

• Max Backhouse

Max has been involved in the bush care program, Clean up Australia, The Red shield appeal, beach clean-ups, Aquinas Bushcare, Blue Gum Lake tree plantings, Legacy Appeal, winter sleep out and purple bra day Appeals.

• Johnathan Vinci

Homework club, Clean-up Australia Day, Motor Neuron Disease appeal, Alter serving, Academy of Combative Martial Arts -where Johnathan assists other young adolescence to develop self-confidence and belief in themselves, not to mention self-defence skills.

• Edmond Whyte

St Pius Churchyard clean up, Aquinas Bush care, Aged Care - Bingo and Anzac Services, National Tree Day South Perth Council, Altar Serving, Clean-up Australia – River clean-ups

Thank you for paying attention and please remember: